


Strange Attractors

by minkhollow



Category: Warehouse 13
Genre: Case Fic, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-13
Updated: 2010-12-13
Packaged: 2017-10-13 16:08:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/139149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minkhollow/pseuds/minkhollow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Regents send Valda to the Warehouse with a case in Massachusetts.  Set between "For the Team" and "Merge With Caution."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Strange Attractors

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MaeveBran](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaeveBran/gifts).



> This was a real challenge - mysteries tend to be my downfall, and I'd never considered writing Valda before I got this assignment - but I really had a blast with this story, in the end. Many thanks to Neb for beta-reading.  
> Other than the bit players in the mystery, the characters are not mine; I'm just borrowing for Yuletide fun.

They all needed a little time to unwind after the messes with Pete and the telegraph and Claudia falling, as she started putting it within five minutes of her recovery, into a vat of spontaneous combustion. Fortunately, the next few days were very quiet, and Pete decided to spend most of his time getting to know Kelly, so Myka had some much-needed time to herself. She was taking a bit of time to get reacquainted with her book collection - though she couldn’t bring herself to pick up any of her H.G. Wells, all things considered - when there was a knock at her door.

“Who is it?”

“Um, Myka?” Claudia’s voice answered. “I’m not... interrupting anything, am I?”

“Not at all, Claudia.” Myka marked her place in her book and set it down on the bed. “Come in.”

Claudia did so, leaning by the doorway after she came in. “I was just thinking, it’s pretty quiet and all, and I’m feeling better, and - it’s been a while since we had a sparring lesson.”

“It has. Are you sure you’re feeling up to it?”

“Oh, yeah. I just needed some extra sleep for a couple days, I’m totally good to go now.” Claudia gave her a thumbs up, and Myka couldn’t help smiling.

“All right. Let’s go get the living room staged.”

Myka almost felt like she would get more of a workout from moving the furniture out of their way than she would from the sparring lesson itself, but Claudia surprised her. She was definitely better than the first time they’d done this, and even came close to hitting Myka a few times.

“Are you sure you’re not still feeling any side effects?” she said, when they stopped for a water break.

“I better not be,” Claudia said. “If I start smoking, we’re calling this the hell off, I can tell you that now.”

“I can assure you you will not have to stop your lesson for that, Miss Donovan,” a third voice cut in. They both jumped; in fact, Claudia nearly fell over, but caught herself on the table before she hit the ground. Valda was leaning in the doorway, as casually as if he’d been there the whole time.

Claudia glared at him. “Jesus, do you _all_ have to do that?”

“You hardly need take it as a personal affront.” He turned to Myka and added, “Agent Bering, we have work to do.”

Myka frowned. “Artie hasn’t mentioned a new case yet.”

“If Agent Nielsen is aware of the situation, he has likely only just found the relevant information. Where is your partner?”

“He took Kelly out again, didn’t he?” Claudia said. “Said something about the theater actually running two movies, for a change, and they managed to agree on one.”

Myka nodded. “And he made a point of leaving me the Farnsworth, so we won’t be able to get a hold of him until the movie’s over. He takes his movies... seriously.” And while it had saved their lives and the entire town, she never wanted to watch a movie Pete knew well enough to quote in its entirety with him again. She was a little relieved on Kelly’s behalf that he’d mentioned insisting on near-absolute silence the first time he saw something.

Valda shrugged. “Well, that’s hardly any reason not to update yourself and Agent Nielsen. We can fill him in when he returns.” He turned toward the front door, clearly expecting Myka to follow, but Claudia scrambled after him first.

“What am I, chopped liver?” she called, as Myka caught up to the front door.

“Hardly, Miss Donovan. In fact, you’re going to be quite crucial to the back end of this operation, while we’re gone.”

Myka blinked, almost more from Valda’s statement than from the sunlight hitting her eyes as she left the B&B. “You’re - Artie’s going with us?”

“If Agent Nielsen is willing to stake his reputation on the work done by yourself and Agent Lattimer, and Mrs. Frederic will in turn take a stand for him, we have every reason to want to see our best Agents in action.”

“Wait wait wait hold up,” Claudia said, “you’re going with ‘em too? Are you sure four won’t be a crowd on an Artifact hunt?”

Valda pursed his lips and nodded, and Myka frowned again; she didn’t need Pete’s vibes to know that Artie probably wasn’t going to like this news.

Artie was so unhappy, in fact, that by the time Pete came back from his date nearly an hour later, Valda still hadn’t been able to get a word in edgewise about the case. Claudia had given up trying to stop Artie’s rant early on, and Myka didn’t blame her; as much as she wanted to find out what was going on and get this over with, it looked like they might have no choice but to let Artie finish venting.

“I don’t care if the Regents are taking a more active interest in our day-to-day operations,” Artie was saying, as Pete walked into the office. “There’s taking an interest and then there’s _meddling_ and doing my job _for_ me. Wouldn’t it have been good enough for you to meet us there once I’d found a case _by myself_?”

“O...kay,” Pete said, before anyone else had a chance to respond. “Good to know I didn’t hallucinate that part, at least. So what’d I miss?”

That, at least, seemed to knock a bit of the wind out of Artie’s sails. “Mr. Valda,” he said, “was apparently sent to us with a case. That I would have found _myself_ soon enough--”

Myka sighed; she couldn’t take it anymore. “Artie, please. I don’t think any of us are really happy about this, but if the Regents think this is important enough for all of us to look into, we need to get down to business and argue about it later.”

Valda smiled tightly at her. “Thank you, Agent Bering. As I have been trying to say, a rash of... unusual infatuations in western Massachusetts has come to our attention. We believe it started in Amherst, but may be spreading to the other college towns in the area, which makes the situation especially worrisome.”

Claudia shrugged without looking away from her computer. “Aren’t infatuations that make no sense what, you know, normal teenagers do? Not that I exactly have experience in the field of normal teenagerdom, but that was the rumor when I was in school.”

“These seem to be rather more abrupt than the phenomenon to which you refer, Miss Donovan, to say nothing of the apparent intensity. Our opinion is that it would be best to have more people on the ground than usual, in the hopes of getting the situation cleared up as quickly as possible.”

“So... what,” Pete said, “they sent you because you’re the least likely to attract that kind of attention?”

Artie and Valda both glared at him, and Myka grinned, trying not to laugh at Pete’s well-earned discomfort.

“...Right. College kids with the love bug. You sure you really want to be going out in the field with me, considering that thing with the telegraph?”

“I assure you, Agent Lattimer, this was hardly my first choice,” Valda said. “However, one must work with what one is given. You are once again fit for field work, and Miss Donovan is far better equipped to keep an eye on things in the Warehouse with minimal assistance than you are.”

“I still have my doubts about that,” Artie muttered; Claudia wadded up a piece of paper and threw it at him.

“Dude, I can handle it,” she said. “I don’t expect Leena to bail me out of wacky hijinks all by herself. That’s your special honor.”

“It’s an honor I could live without.” Artie turned to his own computer and added, “So. The nearest airport to that part of Massachusetts is... Hartford. I’ll get tickets and a rental car, Pete and Myka, start packing, Mr. Valda... do whatever it is you do, Claudia--”

“Artifacts that give people inexplicable crushes,” Claudia said, already typing away. “On it.”

“So,” Pete said, as he and Myka made their way down the umbilicus, “what do you think, will we crack the case before Artie and Valda kill each other or after?”

Myka frowned. “I don’t know. But I’d kind of prefer a case where no one dies before we solve it, if possible.”

***

Myka and Artie met their first Artifact victim at a standing-room-only pizza place in Amherst. Artie spotted him first, while Myka ordered a slice of sauceless three-cheese spinach that was so big she had her doubts about being able to finish it; she suspected he was trying to do something other than look at the available pizza and wish Leena wouldn’t find out he’d broken his diet if he had one.

“Look at those two,” he said after she’d paid for her pizza, pointing at two guys at a small table. “What do you see?”

Myka watched them for a few moments. “I’d guess they know each other pretty well. They’re having an argument, and... they _both_ look weirded out by something. It’s so loud in here I can’t tell what they’re saying, though. If Pete were here--”

Artie raised his eyebrows at her, and held up a stethoscope that he must have pulled out of his bag at some point. “I’d call it a lovers’ quarrel, if not for their faces. Believe me, the blond does _not_ look like he wants to be saying what he’s saying.”

“And since his friend doesn’t look too happy to be hearing it, the Artifact’s probably in play. So either we follow him out, or--” But before she could finish her thought, the second guy got up and left.

The blond guy did agree to talk, once they overcame the noise barrier; they had to step outside to have any meaningful conversation. He introduced himself as Evan, said he was a sophomore at UMass, and then got to the question Myka had come to expect from these missions: “So what’s the Secret Service doing _here_ , anyway?”

“Long story,” Artie said, fishing around in his bag. “We just have a few--”

“Artie, I don’t think we really have time for your list,” Myka said. “Who was that you were arguing with?”

Evan sighed. “He’s my lab partner. And that’s it, but - I fell asleep in our botany lecture the other day and woke up pining. I don’t get it. I don’t even _like_ guys, but I haven’t been able to get him out of my head for three days now.”

“So you thought you’d say something?”

“That wasn’t even why we were meeting for lunch. We were trying to figure out how to handle the first lab, since he can’t be there. It just - popped out of my mouth, and he doesn’t like it any more than I do, but I couldn’t stop myself.”

“Did you eat or drink anything unusual before that class?” Artie said. Myka couldn’t hold that question against him; she would have asked it herself, if she hadn’t just taken a bite of her pizza.

Evan thought about it for a few moments, then said, “Not that I remember. Is that - I gotta get to my class.”

“That should be enough for now,” Myka said. “If we need anything else, we’ll find you. Thank you for your help.”

Evan nodded and left, and Artie turned to glare at Myka. “That was _not_ enough for now. What were you thinking?”

“I was thinking that we can’t keep him from going to class, and we did get some useful information before he left.”

“Useful - and what if this gets the better of him and he just goes after his--”

“He’s fighting it pretty hard, from what he said. We can keep an ear to the ground, but I don’t think we have to worry about him.” Myka sighed. “We should fill in Pete and Valda and see if they found out anything at the library.”

“All right, fine.” Artie pulled his Farnsworth out of his pocket; Pete answered it on the third buzz.

“You guys get anything useful? The library hasn’t been very informative.”

“We met a victim, actually,” Myka said, and filled him in on the details; by the time she finished, Valda had joined Pete.

Pete frowned. “What _is_ this stuff, Love Potion Number Nine or something?”

“Unlikely,” Valda said. “That particular substance only affects the consumer’s feelings regarding someone to whom they already feel some amount of attraction. From the sound of this young man’s experience, that can safely be ruled out.”

“Besides, he said he didn’t eat or drink anything out of the ordinary,” Myka said. “Whatever this is, it isn’t food-based.”

“That does still leave us with a number of options. Agent Nielsen, could it perhaps be Marilyn Monroe’s perfume bottle?”

Artie frowned. “I don’t think so, MacPherson and I collected that in ‘87. I’ll have Claudia run an inventory check, though, in case it wandered off again while he was... anyway. Any vibes to report, Pete?”

Pete snorted. “You mean aside from the feeling this library’s gonna cave in any second?”

“The building has stood quite soundly since 1974, Agent Lattimer,” Valda said. “A few chips of brick happened to land on your head on our way in; that hardly calls for dire predictions.”

“Whatever, man, I am _not_ likin’ this building. But anyway - I don’t think this started here, guys. Can’t tell you where, but there’s two other towns and four more colleges around here. I think we’re gonna have to dig deeper.”

***

They changed groups in Northampton, after Claudia buzzed in to say the perfume bottle was present and accounted for. Pete gave Myka their Farnsworth, then took off uphill from the parking lot, Artie struggling to keep up; Valda kept a more sedate pace, and paused at a storefront halfway up the steep hill.

“I believe some ice cream is in order, don’t you, Agent Bering?” he said.

Myka hesitated. “I don’t - I really shouldn’t, after the size of my lunch, and I’ve been trying to watch my sugar intake for a while now.”

“Oh, I’m sure they have something sugar-free on the menu.” Valda stepped inside and held the door open; Myka sighed and followed him in.

He wasn’t without an ulterior motive; he spent their entire wait in line, barely pausing long enough for Myka to register that the place named its ice cream things like Hearts and Flowers, grilling her with questions about Artie, MacPherson, Pete, Claudia, Leena, H.G., and a surprising amount of Artifact-related things considering they were in public. But if anyone noticed, they didn’t stop to ask.

Valda seemed to run out of questions as they sat down. Myka let him work on his unbelievably large sundae for a while, contemplating what they knew of the case so far and her own single scoop of Hi-Def Vanilla, then said, “I have a question for you, actually.”

“Mmm?”

“You’re no happier to be on this case than we are to have you around. So aside from all the questions, why _are_ you here?”

Valda sighed, and set down his spoon. “We had... a long talk with Agent Nielsen regarding his desire to hunt MacPherson down. Near the end, he accused us of being afraid to face the matter head-on. The accusation stung quite a bit, but with time I reached the conclusion that he was right.”

Myka blinked. “You did?”

“Discounting Agent Lattimer’s encounter with the telegraph, I haven’t been out in the field since 1948. Very few of us come to be Regents from field work, these days - a number of my colleagues have never had the experience. It’s all well and good for us to tell you what to do from a distance, but we cannot afford to be completely disconnected from the reality of the work.” He picked up his spoon again, and scowled at his sundae. “When I made the recommendation that we take the occasional case with you, I had rather hoped someone _else_ would rise to the challenge.”

“Let me guess. Instead they told you since it was your idea, you could do it first?”

“Precisely.”

Before he could add anything else, the Farnsworth buzzed; Myka opened it to find Artie and Pete standing outside of a shop. “What’s up?”

Artie scowled. “Aside from the fact that Pete felt the need to go _shopping_ in the middle of the case?”

“Hey, man, I needed to get Claud something I can’t eat before we get home! Did you miss the part where she got a box of Ghirardelli in California and ate all but two squares before she got back?”

Myka smiled. “I did tell you not to eat all of the biscotti, Pete. You brought it on yourself.”

“ _Any_ way,” Artie said, “while Pete was browsing through two floors of things not related to the case, I met another Artifact victim and her roommate. She fell asleep on the bus and woke up with a raging crush on the guy across the aisle.”

“Oh, dear,” Valda said. “What was her condition, compared to the young man you and Agent Bering interviewed?”

“Much worse. Her roommate was fighting to keep her from staying on the bus all day looking for the guy. We think that whatever this is, she was exposed earlier.”

“Wait,” Myka said. “She fell asleep, and Evan said _he_ fell asleep, and they both...” She trailed off, frowning. “But that’s - well, Pete and I haven’t encountered it before. Could the Artifact be a plant?”

Valda nodded. “It’s considerably rarer than object Artifacts, but it has been known to happen from time to time. Why do you ask?”

“We may have to do a bit more digging, but this is starting to sound very... Shakespearean, to me.”

Pete frowned, but before he could say anything, Artie said, “Funny you should mention. Our second victim’s roommate said something about a group at Mount Holyoke called the Shakespeare Mafia. Sounds like South Hadley is our next stop.”

***

“I mean, really,” Pete said, “Shakespeare _Mafia_? What do they do, cut a pound of flesh off you if you don’t talk in iambic pentameter all the time?”

“I’m actually kind of impressed that you know that one.” Myka watched the students milling about the bottom floor of the student center, mostly clustered around the cafe. “And I really don’t think it’s anything that sinister. Someone would have heard about that by now.”

Pete shrugged, and said something around a mouthful of the cookies he’d bought from the coffee bar on the floor above them.

“What?”

“I said, you never can tell with student groups. Not that this strikes me as a campus that’d do anything more exciting than try to TP a tree, but still. These are some great cookies, Myka, you’re really missing out.”

“That’s fine, Pete, really, I had... wait. Student groups usually put up advertisements to draw people in, right?”

Pete nodded. “That’s the way things usually worked at Akron.”

“And we’re in the student center, so there has to be somewhere to--” She looked around again, and snapped her fingers. “There’s a bulletin board back there, behind the pool table. And if there’s nothing there, I bet that’s not the only board in this building.”

The bulletin board behind the pool table didn’t have much on it, and the one by the bottom floor’s entrance had the opposite problem; it was so caked in flyers that Myka felt if they dug far enough, they’d find things from several years ago. As she frowned at the chaos, Pete started digging around behind a few flyers, and finally said, “Hey hey hey! One medieval mafia coming right up!”

“Renaissance,” Myka corrected, as Pete handed her the flyer. “‘Auditions for’ - it’s a theatre group.”

“And they called it a mafia?” Pete snatched the flyer back. “This is today, Myka. This is now. If we book it I bet we can talk to some of these chicks.”

“Probably. At least the amphitheatre’s easy to find.” Myka sighed, and led the way out the door. “And of course they’re auditioning for _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_ , aren’t they?”

“Oh, I know that one. That’s the one where the guy gets turned into a donkey, right?”

“Just his head, Pete. And that’s not the relevant part. It’s also the one where most of the characters are affected by love-in-idleness.”

Pete frowned. “Which is... why you were asking if the Artifact could be a plant?”

“Exactly. The fairies in the play put it on people’s eyes while they’re asleep, and when they wake up they fall in love with the first person they see.”

“That’d definitely explain why our girl in Northampton fell so hard for a random guy on the bus.”

“And why the kid in Amherst picked up a crush on his lab partner,” Myka said. “If you fall asleep at a desk, you probably have your head turned to one side--”

“And bam, instant crush.” Pete made a face. “But does that mean someone’s going around touching people’s eyes? Ew. I can think of tons of better ways to spend my time.”

“Believe me, so can I.”

They headed up a set of stairs next to the amphitheatre in order to come down through the seats rather than walk onstage while people were working; Pete sat down in the third row and finished his cookies, and Myka listened to the auditions while he ate.

“I think the director’s involved in this somehow,” Pete said, around his last bite of cookie. “Big vibe about her since we got in here.”

“From listening to her, I think so too.” Myka stood up, and headed down the last few stairs; when the auditions reached a break, she said, “You’re a bit of a stickler for realism, aren’t you?”

The girl jumped, then turned around, a nervous smile on her face. “Sorry, I didn’t know we had - you’re... not here to try out, are you?”

“Hardly. Agent Bering, Secret Service, and that--” she nodded to Pete, who waved and flashed his badge as he got up - “is my partner, Agent Lattimer.”

“Um, hi. I’m Kaitlyn. Moskowitz. The president’s not coming _here_ , is he? Or is it - I don’t think it’d be a counterfeiting problem, not enough people use cash on campus to really get anything into circulation.”

“Points for originality,” Pete said, “but no. We’re here about... another problem that we think you know something about. So, about your method acting approach?”

“Well...” Kaitlyn shrugged. “I think it makes it more fun when you have people who can be really believable actors. We may not be doing this for course credit or anything, but we should still be able to give people a good show.”

“Fair enough. But what about life imitating art a little too well?”

“What do you mean?”

“There are at least two confirmed cases in the area of people falling asleep and waking up in love with the first person they see,” Myka said. “Possibly more. If you’re trying to give people a taste of the play before they come to see it--”

“Oh God no,” Kaitlyn said, her eyes wide. “No. How could you think I - no. I had enough trouble with that damn thing my first year, I would _never_ put anyone through that deliberately.”

Myka blinked; she hadn’t been expecting _that_ reaction, to say the least. “Okay,” she said. “What... do you know about it, in that case? You’ve clearly had an encounter with love-in-idleness before.”

Kaitlyn sighed, and sat down on the edge of the stage. “The greenhouse gives firsties free plants. Campus tradition. I almost didn’t get one, I generally kill things within a few days, but my roommate talked me into it, and I didn’t know what I had until it started blooming. That was - it’s a good thing we both knew we at least like girls a little, those two weeks were confusing enough. We worked it out when it hit its second bloom cycle right after Thanksgiving and started cutting the bloom stalks off as soon as we saw ‘em growing.”

“That’s a lot stronger than needing to be dabbed on people’s eyes,” Pete said. “Yikes. Do you still have the plant?”

“No. I gave it to my ex when we broke up last year.”

Pete nodded, but before he could say anything else, the Farnsworth buzzed in his pocket. “Mykes, I’m gonna...” He pointed toward the back of the stage.

Myka nodded at Pete. “Thank you for your help, Kaitlyn. I think we’ll be able to get to the bottom of this now.”

“Good. It’s... I picked this play because I thought it’d be cathartic, you know? I don’t mind describing the feeling to people, but the last thing I’d do is put them through the experience, I don’t care if the show suffers for it in that case.”

Myka smiled. “And that’s always good to know.” With that, she headed upstage to join Pete, and said, “Who buzzed? Is it Artie?”

“Look before you say these things, Myka,” Claudia’s voice said from the Farnsworth. “I _really_ hope there’s never a day where you can’t tell me and him apart.”

“Sorry, Claudia. What’s up?”

“Artie had me look some stuff up, after that first guy you talked to. Class list for the botany lecture the dude’s taking. I’m not sure why he had me run it then--”

“But we can put it to use now,” Pete said.

“That we can.” Myka frowned. “Evan goes to UMass, he said - are their classes limited to students enrolled there, or not?”

Claudia shook her head. “Anyone enrolled in one of the five colleges in the area can take a class at any of the other four.”

“Okay, sweet,” Pete said. “For a start, root out anyone who’s going to Mount Holyoke? If Kaitlyn got her plant at the greenhouse here, maybe someone else got it too.”

Claudia’s focus shifted as she typed on her computer; when she turned back to the Farnsworth, she was frowning. “No dice, amigo. Got any other bright search options?”

“Pull up Kaitlyn Moskowitz’s Facebook page, if she has one,” Myka said. It was a long shot, but she thought it might have the answer she was looking for.

“...Got a few to choose from. You want the one that goes to Mount Holyoke, I’m guessing?”

“Yeah, we just talked to her, she said she gave her first-year plant to her ex when they broke up. I’d try focusing around spring.”

“So you’re thinking if at least one of them is as social in their networking as most people, that’ll generate a name?”

“Makes more sense than anything else we’ve got right now,” Pete said. “You missed out on some awesome cookies, by the way.”

“I’d tell you to bring me some, but we both know they’d--” Claudia grinned. “Bingo in the elf lounge!”

“Elves play bingo?”

Myka shrugged. “I guess they do in Claudia World. We should let Artie and Valda know we have a new lead - Claudia, what’s this person’s name?”

***

“Definitely Shaggy,” Pete said, as they pulled up behind Hampshire’s library. Myka found herself very glad she’d stopped the car and could give him the incredulous look that statement deserved.

“What are you talking about?”

“When Artie and I were in that store in Northampton, I overheard some people arguing about comparing the colleges up here to Scooby-Doo. Apparently, no one can decide which one’s Daphne and which one’s Velma, but this?” He waved a hand at the campus as he got out of the car. “Is definitely Shaggy.”

“...If you say so, Pete. Let’s just - go and talk to this girl, and hopefully we’ll be done by the time Artie and Valda are finished at the greenhouse and we can all go home.”

She had to admit, the campus had a very hippie-ish feel to it; the buildings looked more like photos of a Bauhaus art colony she’d seen in one of her father’s books than any college she’d ever been to. But why Pete had to bring Scooby-Doo into things at a time like this, she had no idea.

Thanks to Claudia’s work on the Facebook angle, they had a picture of their likely culprit. Finding one person out of thousands, especially one who took at least one class off-campus, still looked like a fairly daunting task, but on the other hand, they didn’t have to interview everyone in the valley.

“What do you think, Pete?” she said. “Any vibes as to where we should start?”

Pete tilted his head to one side. “Actually? I’m thinking the library. Maybe the only time I’ll ever say that in my life.”

Myka rolled her eyes. “At least we don’t have far to go, in that case.”

Pete led her on what felt like a completely aimless walk around the stacks; it occurred to her five aisles in that at this time last year, she would have been protesting every step of the way that he didn’t seem to have any actual plan. But she had faith that this would pay off, and it did within ten minutes, when they found the person they were looking for holed up in a carrel.

“Julia Martin?”

The girl jumped, even though Myka had spoken quietly, and turned around. “Can I help you?”

“We hope so,” Pete said. “We need to talk to you about your plant.”

“Which one? I don’t have anything illegal, if that’s what you were wondering. Just because I’ve been accused of keeping a greenhouse in my room--”

Myka shook her head. “Nothing like that. It’s about the love-in-idleness that Kaitlyn gave you.”

Julia frowned. “What about it? She said I could try my luck with it, if I wanted to, but she didn’t want it anymore.”

“Have you taken it out of your room since you got it?”

“Well, yeah. I took it home for the summer. And I’m doing my Div III on literary botany, so--”

“Wait,” Pete said, “your div what now?”

“It’s... like a thesis on steroids. Sort of. Anyway, my botany prof at UMass said he was interested in seeing it, when I mentioned I’d adopted it, so I took it in a few days ago.”

“You take the bus to class?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“You’ve left a lot of chaos in your wake,” Myka said. “We’ve met two people in the area who were unlucky enough to fall asleep around that thing, while you were out. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were more victims than that.”

“Wait. It really does that?” Julia made a face. “I thought Kaitlyn was kidding when she said she had to cut the blooms off to live with it, but... now that you mention it, a couple of my modmates _have_ been acting kinda weird lately. It’s been awfully soap opera in there the last week or so. I figured Mercury was in retrograde or something.”

“No, not that,” Pete said. “Not unless Artie really dropped the ball on the pre-retrograde lockdown this time.”

“Do what?”

Myka elbowed Pete, and said, “Don’t mind him. But if you’ve been living with the plant in full bloom for at least a week, how has it not affected you?”

“Well, since it obviously doesn’t have to be on your eyes to make you go nuts, I’d say the fact that I can’t smell is helpful.” She closed her eyes. “God, I really thought she was kidding,” she said, apparently to herself. “You’d think I would’ve seen the signs before now.”

“It happens to all of us sometimes. But we do need to get that plant out of circulation.”

Julia sighed. “Well, I guess having it around for my presentation was a nice thought while it lasted. But if it’s causing that much trouble and getting it out of the mod will kill the drama, you can keep it. It’s in my room.”

***

“That was easy,” Pete said, as he and Myka took the love-in-idleness down to storage - with some help from the original Radio Flyer wagon, as Mount Holyoke’s greenhouse had had quite a bit of the plant in stock.

Myka nodded. “Almost too easy. But then, none of us tried to sleep until after we had it all neutralized. That might count for something.”

“True. So this... must be the place. Didn’t know there’d be enough plants in here to justify a greenhouse.”

“Well, Valda did only say that it’s rare, not impossible.”

The greenhouse itself didn’t look much different from other greenhouses Myka had seen, except for the fact that it was bathed in purple light. She was mostly surprised that the plants the Warehouse collected were allowed to keep growing, considering they would probably be less dangerous if they were dead, but it did make a certain amount of sense. They didn’t go out of their way to destroy the objects they collected, after all; the plants likely fell under the same guidelines.

“Blue roses? Sweet.” Pete grinned, but Myka cleared her throat before he could reach for one.

“I believe those are usually associated with forgetfulness,” she said. “And on that note, I’d leave the lotuses alone too.”

Pete made a face, and backed away slowly. “Yeeeeah, I think I’ve had enough trouble with things screwing with my head lately. I really don’t need that kind of encouragement.”

They loaded the love-in-idleness onto a table in silence, for a while. When they were almost done, Pete leaned against the table and sighed. “Did Valda give you the third degree too?”

Myka nodded. “And I bet he did the same to Artie. And he - did you know he was an Agent, before? A long time ago.”

“Like... when Artie got here, a long time ago, or Rebecca a long time ago?”

“Before Rebecca.” Myka set the last plant on the table. “I wouldn’t have guessed.”

Pete shrugged. “I guess Mrs. Frederic isn’t the only one with a lot of secrets. Or a pretty terrifying eyebrow.”

Myka sighed, but before she could speculate any more about Valda’s project, the Farnsworth buzzed; she pulled it out of her pocket and opened it to find Artie on the screen.

“Are you two almost done?” he said.

“Yeah, we were just finishing up,” Pete said, as he came around to see the screen. “What’s up?”

“String of robberies in Denver, apparently carried out by a disappearing thief. I’m going to need you two to check that out.”

“Aw, man, can’t I at least have a night to take Kelly out to dinner, now that she’ll admit it’s more than two people happening to eat at the same table?”

Myka couldn’t hold back a grin. “I think this is the part where Artie says ‘an Agent’s work is never done.’”

“It would be,” Artie said, “if you hadn’t just said it for me. I’m still rounding up the details so far, so you might have tonight to yourselves. And... Mr. Valda seems to think that your work in Massachusetts has earned you a weekend off. If you want to spend that time with your girlfriend - _after_ the case - I won’t be asking you about it.”

Pete grinned. “Awesome. We’ll be up in a minute.”

“Good. And put that wagon back where you found it.” Artie’s face disappeared from the screen, and Myka closed the Farnsworth.

“A weekend off?” she said, as they left the greenhouse and started back toward the wagon’s home. “I’m not sure if I’d know what to do with myself.”

“I’d ask what you do for fun, but it’s a lot like what you do for work - hey! You did not have to hit me for that one!”

“Maybe not, but I feel better now.”

It wasn’t until Myka checked her email before dinner that she remembered her high school class reunion. With a case in Denver, she’d be close enough to make it, provided they had everything worked out in time. And it didn’t hurt that someone she’d wanted to see for a while had sent out the invitations.

She decided it couldn’t hurt to reply with a tentative yes.

**Author's Note:**

> Businesses featured in this fic: Antonio's Pizza in Amherst, Herrell's Ice Cream in Northampton, and Faces, also in Northampton. Also, the cookies Pete got at Mount Holyoke really are that good; the chef behind the recipe started selling tubs of cookie dough, but I don't recall the name it's under.  
> Additional thanks to Lexie for the Hampshire geography check, and to crazedcrusader for help Artifact-brainstorming (especially the wagon) and general cheerleading.


End file.
